I. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and temptations of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit.[1] This their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.[2]
II. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion, with God,[3] and so became dead in sin,[4] and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.[5]
III. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed;[6] and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.[7]
IV. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,[8] and wholly inclined to all evil,[9] do proceed all actual transgressions.[10]
V. This corruption of nature, during this life, does remain in those that are regenerated;[11] and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.[12]
VI. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto,[13] does in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner,[14] whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God,[15] and curse of the law,[16] and so made subject to death,[17] with all miseries spiritual,[18] temporal,[19] and eternal.[20]
Reference texts
[1]. Gen 3:13; 2 Cor 11:3. • [2]. Rom 11:32.
[3]. Gen 3:6-8; Eccl 7:29; Rom 3:23. • [4]. Gen 2:17; Eph 2:1. • [5]. Gen 6:5; Jer 17:9; Rom 3:10-19; Titus 1:15.
[6]. Gen 1:27-28 and 2:16-17 and Acts 17:26 with Rom 5:12, 15-19 and 1 Cor 15:21-22; 1Cor 15:45, 49. • [7]. Gen 5:3; Job 14:4; 15:14; Psa 51:5.
[8]. Rom 5:6; 7:18; 8:7; Col 1:21. • [9]. Gen 6:5; 8:21; Rom 3:10-12. • [10]. Mat 15:19; Eph 2:2-3; James 1:14-15.
[11]. Prov 20:9; Eccl 7:20; Rom 7:14, 17-18, 23; James 3:2; 1 John 1:8, 10. • [12]. Rom 7:5, 7-8, 25; Gal 5:17.
[13]. 1 John 3:4. • [14]. Rom 2:15; 3:9, 19. • [15]. Eph 2:3. • [16]. Gal 3:10. • [17]. Rom 6:23. • [18]. Eph 4:18. • [19]. Lam 3:39; Rom 8:20. • [20]. Mat 25:41; 2 Thes 1:9.